The vast majority of disputes seem to arise from one or both sides being unwilling to acknowledge the validity of the other side’s point of view. There is what they “know” to be “true” based on the depthless wealth of their own experience, and then there is “wrong.” Invariably, people tend to interpret others’ actions not through the lens of common sense but through the lens of what they believe such behavior would mean from them. As in, if something doesn’t immediately make sense to them, then clearly it’s nonsensical. Which is how, historically, disorders like PTSD have been so easily minimized. “I don’t have it,” goes the logic, “therefore you can’t have it, either.”

Which is the basis of the advice to write what you know.

I’ve talked before, in I Look Like This Because I’m A Writer, about how this kind of thinking leads to narrative…